08/09/2011 12:49 PM
The Indecisive President
Obama's Weakness Is a Problem for the Global Economy

By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington

A new financial crisis has gripped the US, Asia and Europe,
but Barack Obama can only respond with catchphrases. The
United States will remain a "triple-A country," the US
president insisted Monday, as stock markets crashed. The most
powerful man in the world seems strangely paralyzed.
America's president, as the political scientist Richard
Neustadt once noted, may be the most powerful man in the
world, but he has only one real power: the power of
persuasion.
That's why US presidents are so keen to get in front of the TV
cameras and address the nation from what Americans refer to as
the "presidential pulpit." Barack Obama was back at the pulpit
on Monday afternoon, as the world's stock exchanges plummeted.
"No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and
always will be a triple-A country," asserted the president. It
had taken Obama three days to make a statement on Standard
& Poor's decision to strip the United States of its top
credit rating.
But Obama convinced no one. Even while the president was
speaking, the Dow fell below 11,000 for the first time in nine
months. This is certainly a problem for Obama, but more than
that, it is a problem for America.
Do Americans Still Trust Their President?
The debates about debt ceilings, trillion-dollar austerity
packages and budgetary tricks are highly technical, and only
financial experts really understand them. But in the end it
all comes down to some very simple questions. Do Americans
still trust their political system and their president? More
importantly, do they still have confidence in America's
greatness?
The debt-ceiling compromise that Congress reached last week
was intended to restore this confidence. But it didn't really
satisfy anyone, and its impact has faded quickly.
Now Obama wants to take another stab at the issue. On Monday,
he announced that, following the shock downgrade, he wants to
hold new negotiations on debt reduction, "as soon as Congress
gets back." The president said he intends to present his own
proposals "over the coming weeks."
But does he really have that much time, given the global shock
waves on the markets? Shouldn't Obama take action right away?
And shouldn't he seem a bit more decisive?
"The most powerful man in the world seems strangely powerless,
and irresolute, as larger forces bring down the country and
his presidency," writes influential Washington Post columnist
Dana Milbank. Many American observers are asking what happened
to Obama's leadership, which was already lacking during
negotiations in Congress on the US debt ceiling. Those talks
only achieved something when the leaders of both parties in
Congress reached an agreement -- not because Obama laid down
the law.
Calls for Obama to Lead
The calls for more leadership from the president are getting
louder. And they are coming from the left, right and center of
the political spectrum.
John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate,
mocked Obama for "leading from behind." In a SPIEGEL
interview, legendary civil rights activist Jesse Jackson also
criticized the president for not showing more of a backbone.
"The Republicans feel they can keep pushing and he will keep
giving," he said. "They have not seen a stiff resistance on
his part."
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, the influential
psychology professor Drew Westen asked what happened to
Obama's passion. Unlike, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of
the fathers of the US welfare state, Obama is failing to argue
for his political values with his heart and soul, Westen
writes.
Meanwhile, the respected Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff has
criticized Obama's concessions in the debt-ceiling wrangle.
"He was holding all the cards and he was still stared down by
the Tea Party," Rogoff told SPIEGEL in an interview. "He
should have said: 'I do not negotiate with terrorists. If you
want to bring down financial markets, it will be on your head.
I am going to behave normally and responsibly.' Instead, he
got gamed into making giant concessions, and this has weakened
the presidency."
A Problem for the World
The debate is transforming Obama's problem into one for the
entire US. "Can America still lead?" asks Washington Post
columnist E.J. Dionne Jr.. Millions of people around the world
had hoped in vain that Obama "would restore the United States
to a position of responsible global leadership," Dionne
writes. "America's friends overseas know that the debt crisis
was instigated by Obama's opponents. Yet they worry now about
how strong Obama is, whether he will draw lines and if he can
seize back the initiative."
Indeed, the rest of the world is displaying its uncertainty in
a relatively open manner. Christine Lagarde, the new head of
the International Monetary Fund, has warned that the
fundamental belief in America's economic strength could be
permanently undermined. Others can't resist showing
schadenfreude. In a strongly worded editorial, Xinhua, China's
state-run news agency, advised American leaders to show "some
sense of global responsibility." Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin went even further, publicly accusing the US of
"living like parasites off the global economy."
But that kind of schadenfreude is strangely shortsighted.
Because it is precisely now, in the middle of a serious
crisis, that the planet needs a determined voice in Washington
-- a city which is still in many ways the world capital.
Weak leadership could cost Obama the next election. But it is
not just a problem for the US president. Neither is it just a
problem for America. Obama's weakness is a problem for the
entire global economy.